What started as a blog looking at Booker Prize Shortlisted novels since 1969, has morphed into a search for the best writing from the whole planet. Books listed for Awards of various descriptions a forte but not a prerequisite.

All the links to affiliates, ads etc on my blog generate income. I donate 100% of ALL income to various charities. So buy books using links on my blog - they cost you no more - but the affiliate fee I receive is donated to various charities (to see which charities visit http://messcharityrun.blogspot.com.au/)

Friday, 21 August 2015

To date, on this blog, I have reviewed seven of Peirene’s
seventeen releases to date, I have read one other (“White Hunger” by Aki
Ollikainen) and actually didn’t get around to writing up a review, maybe one
day!!! I have absolutely no qualms in purchasing any of their titles as I am
yet to come across a shocker. I have favourites, I have some that didn’t raise
me to great heights, however they are always a quality presentation with a
surprise of some description in store. The “short” concept also is appealing to
me, as it acts as a nice counterbalance to some of the weightier behemoth’s I
occasionally attack (and not always successfully!) I do own every title they
have released so it is only a matter of time and I will have reviewed all of
their catalogue for you.

Why all the preamble? Well, today’s title, “Mr Darwin’s
Gardener” by Kristina Carlson (translated by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur
Jeremiah), would be the most “experimental” of the Peirene titles I have read
to date. I use the word “experimental” as I have heard somebody else use it to
describe this book, personally I hate that description as it can automatically
alienate a number of potential readers, I would prefer to call it “less
conventional”.

On the surface our story is about Thomas Davies, a man stuck
down with grief over his wife’s death, he is left alone to raise two young
children who are “not quite right”, and by the way he’s Charles Darwin’s
gardener. Our story opens on with a section called “A Sunday In November” and
although written in the first person, we see the story unfolding through
various parishioners’ eyes, as they are off to church. A number of them think
about godless Thomas working for a godless man (Darwin), he is shunned:

Do-gooders understand disease and
even death, but not the fact that I want to be alone. Solitude is what they
themselves fear most.

When I was out of my mind and the
children were asleep, I wrote:

The silence of plants calms the mind. I am glad that plants do not run
off like animals or fly away like birds. They stay put for hundreds of years,
like oaks, or they vanish for winter and rise from the ground like the blue
lily of the east, and they spread joyously like the balsam that flings its
seeds far.

When Gwyn was dying, I did not
think about where she was going, but about what she was leaving. She was
abandoning Catherine, John, and me. She did not leave abruptly. Death held the
door ajar for many months.

I wrote that a plant dies easily, and annual’s stem withers after
the seeds have developed.

The villagers believe it is not
worthwhile for a family such as ours to carry on living. They think that is the
law of nature. In his newspaper article, Lewis put thoughts in my mouth that
many find pleasing in their terribleness.

Anything goes, whether it comes
from God or science or one’s own head. As long as the evidence supports a
notion one believes anyway. Village theology amounts to raking with a flea
comb. Inappropriate thoughts are tidied away. At the same time, the hair falls
out.

Of course that was Thomas Davies’ voice, some others are
harder to decipher, others very simple as they’re named, some voices go for
pages, some for just a paragraph. The second section, “A stranger in August”,
sees the arrival of a stranger and our various narrators hypothesise on who
this stranger is, “it is because Mr Darwin lives here, and godlessness is a
worse threat than in neighbouring villages”, the stranger must be here to sell
Bibles, deluxe ones of course.

Each character’s narration is sprinkle of their own views on
the matter at hand, and these layers, from various viewpoints, slowly build to
give you a semblance of a perceived truth, but in reality it is like trying to
follow a dust mote with your eyes in the bright light, you have very little
substance and is any of it true? Perception is the truth here.

Our novella is set in the 1870’s, twenty years after “Origin
of Species” was first published and although Charles Darwin himself does not
feature as a character his gardener is the main core of the spiral of innuendo,
gossip, hypothesis and rumour.

Section three – “At the anchor” reveals a little about how,
as a reader, you need to decipher the wheat from the chaff, the substance from
the froth, who is speaking here:

Man has only three hidey-holes
from life: booze or sleep...

The third is a woman.

I was thinking of death.

A man goes mad if he cannot
escape his life for a short while. His head can’t stand life for days on end.
Perhaps that’s what troubles Thomas, and he hasn’t yet found the cure.

A Christian will help another
Christian. When a victim of circumstances rejects this help, it is as if he
were placing a lump of manure on a palm held out for a warm handshake.

Fresh manure is warm, too.

A rock of offence will not hurt
us, for a Christian must forgive. I forget how many times, I’ve no head for
maths.

What about a head for drink?

Section four, “The Second Advent”, starts to bring all the
village rumours toward the common theme of Thomas Davies. The murky waters are
becoming clearer.

My Hume claims that in country
places, a rumour about a marriage will take flight more easily than any other.
But he is wrong there, for accidents and diseases excite people far more. The
joy of being able to impart such engrossing news, and be the first to spread
it, is much greater.

A spacious mind engages with big
questions, whereas small souls are satisfied with crumbs to chew on.

Our book finishes with a section called “In Spring”, a time
of renewal perhaps?

Unconventional would be a word to describe this book,
however it is not so extreme that you cannot make sense of it, I did take about
20 or so pages to warm to the style and decipher the narrative structure, once
I was there it was a very enjoyable read, with the many layers of voices slowly
building a focused view. The lingering doubt remains as so many voices are far
from the mark of the perceived truth, so it leaves you with that feeling, what
is truth? Blend that with a religious flavour, the all pervading nature (our
main man is a gardener), with the shadow of Charles Darwin and there are many
many angles to pursue here. Another worthwhile publication from Peirene Press.